Extraordinary moments.

Remarkable things happen each and every day all over the world.  We hear about them on the news, see them in our social media feeds and sometimes they even happen to us personally.  Sometimes, we can go days even months without anything significant happening in our own lives and sometimes extraordinary things happen more than once in a single day.  What defines a remarkable or extraordinary moment?  And how is it that we can go for long periods of time without anything of note happening in our lives?  Have you ever met a person who seems to have great things happening all the time?  Are they lying or is it their outlook on life that yields great personal events?  Today, I would wager that it is our outlook that yields happiness, greatness, and extraordinariness; whatever you might want to call it.   

I often get caught up in my daily routine of working, paying the bills and taking care of the kids and think nothing important is happening to me.  I get sucked into a humdrum way of life and forget that there is a whole wide world happening right outside my door.  My typical day consists of being woken from slumber by a screaming child, or maybe even two children screaming in unison.  I change diapers, I dress them, I feed them.  Then we play.  Then I change diapers, I feed them, I play with them.   You get the idea.  You can see how this might get monotonous and one might start to think that life is a little uneventful but every once in a while I’m able to see that there are so many great moments in between the feeding, and diapering, and playing that make life remarkable.  One might even have enough clarity during the feeding, diapering, playing to see that these moments are great too. 

I also occasionally have interesting, out of the ordinary things happen to me or in my presence that I am able to witness.  Today on the street while walking with my husband to a movie, I saw a toddler walking around with no pants on.  This is not a normal occurrence in Colombia despite what you might think.  He was part of a group of indigenous people.  I was not able to determine if they were homeless or just extremely poor but they were needy to say the least.  There are about 4 million internally displaced persons in Colombia due to the long-running internal conflict between rebel groups and the government.  The situation in the country has improved drastically over the last several years but a definite problem still exists.  The group of people that I saw today was most likely internally displaced because they were pushed off of their land by a rebel group, which lead them to the city to try and find a place to call home again.  As a mother I was so touched by this bare bottomed little boy.  I teared up right there on the street.  For me this was an extraordinary moment.  It was extraordinary because despite their circumstances these people continue on with the day to day of life.  The child was carefree, living in the moment. 

So you see, sometimes the universe gives us moments to think about and decide if they are significant.  That simple moment of seeing a little child running around on a street corner made an impact on me that will affect my day tomorrow and the interactions that I have with my own children.  I hope that I can live in the moment and not worry so much about what comes next.  We all want answers about tomorrow and we miss the answers that are right in front of us. 

Information on internally displaced persons in Colombia: 

http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e492ad6.html

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/aug/12/colombia-internally-displaced-people-instability